A Tribute to Troy Aikman from a San Francisco 49ers Faithful

Many, if not most, fanbases have endured far harder times than those suffered by the San Francisco 49er die-hards.  I wouldn't say I'm a die-hard—an adjective I reserve for my loyalty to the SF Giants—but I am a loyal fan.  It admittedly doesn't kill me when the Niners lose, yet I hate seeing teams like the Dallas Cowboys, St. Louis Rams, and (to a lesser degree) the Green Bay Packers enjoy success.

Maybe it's because I've gotten inured to the losses through some pretty barren recent history.  Certainly it's because those are the worst foils for the last, good Niner teams we've seen by the Bay.

Regardless, the overall success of San Francisco's National Football League franchise garners its supporters very little sympathy and rightly so.

However, I'd argue you would be hard pressed to find a fanbase whose agonizing moments were any more excruciating in terms of who authored them as opposed to how they were authored.

By that, I mean I'll put the 'pokes of the early 1990s up against anyone's blood rival in a showdown of "Who Kept Getting Creamed by a Bigger Bunch of Urinal Cakes."

Back in those days, my favorite quarterback of all-time (Steve Young) was rampaging his way through the NFL.  The Stormin' Mormon would have three championship rings...except for those Dallas Cowboys—the SF teams that would lose to the Packers three straight years in the latter part of the decade were not quite as stacked as the teams from the early part of the decade.

In 1992 and 1993, Young lead our championship-caliber Niners into the teeth of those Dallas squads in the postseason.  And, both years, Jerry Jones and his band of miscreants stomped out our Super Bowl dreams.

Those Cowboys seemed like the only thing that could stop the 49er freight train both seasons.  And both seasons they did.

The ordeal was all the more traumatizing because the agonizing defeats were trumpeted from the highest mountains and loudest microphones by such understated personalities as Ol' Jerry, Jimmy Johnson, and Michael Irvin.  The rest of the roster wasn't exactly tight-lipped either.

Ken Norton Jr., Russell Maryland, Nate Newton, Leon Lett, Charles Haley—these were not men who listed "gracious in victory" amongst their bedrock life principles.

Then you had the excellence of Emmitt Smith and the uncanny leadership of Troy Aikman to stomach—it was a brutal assignment.

I HATED those teams.  Hated.

It's a verb I also usually reserve for Major League Baseball.  The Los Angeles Dodgers, to be exact, and even my current brand of loathing for the Bums pales in comparison to the more youthfully exuberant version I harbored for Dallas as a 14- and 15-year-old.  It's something I'm proud to have outgrown because it is only a game, but—as a teenager—the hate burned.

It burned so long, that only recently have I been able to appreciate the guy who orchestrated the whole shebang—Aikman.

He doesn't get a ton of love for those three Super Bowl titles and, in truth, the shadow over him makes sense.

The offensive line was revolutionary with the big bodies of Newton, Larry Allen, Erik Williams, Mark Tuinei, Mark Stepnoski, and Kevin Gogan.  It allowed Smith to amass his superlative numbers, often without being touched until three or four yards had been covered.  It usually gave Troy ample time to find an open target from his many weapons.

Alvin Harper paired up with Irvin for the first two titles to make a devastating duo of wide receivers.  Jay Novacek was no slouch from the tight end position and Darryl Johnston was dangerous, either as a blocker or skill player.

And the defense deserves just as much credit for its bevy of Pro Bowlers.

So Troy Aikman didn't have to carry the same burden most other NFL QBs have to carry in terms of on-field production.  But he had an insanely unique and burdensome cross to bear in the form of the Dallas Cowboy locker room.

Make no mistake about it—the current scrutiny cast upon the Star is not an entirely new development.  The emergence of the 24-hour-sports gawkfest has taken it to a new level, but Dallas was always the place to be if you were looking for a good NFL story.

The same guys who made losing to the Cowboys so painful had to have made Aikman's job infinitely more difficult than any of us can imagine.  No matter how many stories leaked to the general public, they must've been merely the tip of the iceberg.

Even in an organization as notoriously porous to media leaks as the Dallas Cowboys, you gotta figure most fires are put out in-house.  You also have to figure the quarterback, especially a leader like Aikman, would be the point person to handle such conflagrations.

In hindsight, Troy Aikman's role in those Super Bowl winning campaigns is probably under-appreciated.  Sure, Aikman's numbers don't jump off the page.

In an 11-year career truncated by concussion troubles, the Cowboy QB penned a record of 94-71 for a .570 winning percentage in 165 games.  He completed 2898 passes in 4715 attempts for a career completion percentage of 61.5.  Those passes were good for 32,942 yards, 165 touchdowns, and 141 interceptions.  That's 3.5 TDs per 100 attempts, 3 INTs per 100 attempts, 11.4 yards per completion, 7 yards per attempt, almost 200 yards passing per game (199.6), and a career QB rating of 81.6.

Toss in over 1000 yards and 9 TDs rushing with 58 fumbles.

Like I said, nothing there will put him amongst the historic leaders at the position.

Of course, his three Super Bowl rings rank behind only those owned by Joe Montana in the modern era—they share the second rung on the ladder with Tom Brady's shiny trio—and Terry Bradshaw from antiquity (just kidding...kind of).

And that's the thing that's taken time for me to fully appreciate about Troy Aikman.

He, more so than any QB from the modern era, gets judged by a different standard.  Usually, we will find a way to shower adoration upon a quarterback who wins—even if he fails to put up staggering offensive totals.  The NFL is about winning when it counts and, nine times out of 10, the signal-caller will get the lion's share of the credit if a team succeeds in doing so.

Troy Aikman was a monument to this concept—take it from the man himself:

"I've always believed if you win, it's good enough. My career was based on that. So I don't really have a lot of great things to say about anybody who comes out and vocalizes their displeasure because they're not getting more passes or more throws or more carries. To me, that's not what this game is about."

In that same link, he points out Irvin was never shy about demanding the ball and his Cowboys had clubhouse tiffs as well.  Aikman also points out the vast majority stayed right there in the clubhouse and—judging from his words and actions—I believe his hand was a firm one in the process.

With the benefit of time and perspective, I've settled on viewing Troy Aikman as a different version of Peyton Manning or Steve Young—a guy who played in the middle of a supremely talented offense except he put together an outrageous landscape of big wins instead of statistical/regular season brilliance (to date for Peyton).

Obviously, Aikman's ultimate successes were greatly facilitated by tremendous defenses—something that Manning has largely lacked—but (as alluded to) Troy had the additional circus element that every and only Dallas QBs must confront on an annual, sometimes weekly, basis.

In addition to all the other nonsense an NFL quarterback/player must digest.

But perhaps the most unappreciated aspect of Troy Aikman is his brain—that little organ he retired from football to protect.  I remember my dad and I making jokes about how little sense this made.  And his first several years in the booth seemed to confirm our suspicions.

Well, I'll order another round of crow for those jabs.

Aikman's proven to be a man of considerable intelligence and insight while possessing a raw ability to communicate both that needed only a bit of polish.

Whether the evidence is the afore-linked assessment of Terrell Owens and the impact of his departure or this little gem about Tony Romo and the role of perception:  "But to say, 'I don't worry about perception,' you better worry about perception, because it's a big part of making it through some very difficult times."  Or even his weekly football IQ as demonstrated through his work for FOX Sports.

Whichever is your preferred poison, the signs are there and—to me—they amount to proof.

It's time to roll back that shadow and shine some light on Troy Aikman.

Maybe he's not the best NFL quarterback of all-time, but he was good enough to be a critical piece for a franchise that won three Super Bowls in four years.

And torture the entire San Francisco Bay Area for many more.